Chapter 20 #2
That pulled a reluctant laugh out of me despite the pain eating away at me. The laughter didn’t last long because the more I thought about it, the uglier the feeling became.
We pulled up to our destination ten minutes later. The block looked different tonight. Usually, people crowded the sidewalks out here no matter the hour. Music blasted from passing cars while niggas posted up on the corner, and women drifted between clubs.
Tonight, the street looked half asleep. Most of the storefronts were dark, and nobody lingered outside. Even the liquor store across the street looked empty.
Booda turned behind the building without saying much, and darkness swallowed the truck almost immediately. Most of the streetlights back there barely worked, leaving only a weak security light flickering near the dumpster farther down the alley.
My attention drifted back to Giani before I could think too hard about any of it.
She’d been my sister in everything but blood. The one person I thought would ride with me no matter what happened. And she’d tried to seduce my man. My man. The one person in this world who actually gave a fuck about me beyond what I could do for them.
The betrayal hit differently now that the shock was wearing off.
Giani didn’t just want what I had. She wanted to take it. To replace me. To slide into my life like I was nothing but an obstacle in her way.
Booda reached into the backseat and grabbed his choppa before resting it across his lap.
I checked both of my guns before placing one beside my thigh and keeping the other in my hand.
Then we waited.
Minutes dragged by quietly. Booda glanced at his phone again before tossing it into the cupholder with visible irritation.
“They late.”
I glanced at the clock on the dashboard.
By almost twenty minutes. That should’ve bothered me more than it did.
A pair of headlights swept past the alley entrance before disappearing farther down the street. Both of us looked up automatically, but the vehicle kept going.
Booda rubbed his jaw.
“You hear from him?”
I shook my head while checking my phone, even though no new notifications waited for me.
Somewhere nearby, metal rattled loudly, and I glanced toward the side mirror before everything went still again.
Booda’s fingers tapped the side of the choppa.
“You think they changed their mind?” I asked eventually.
“Nah.”
“You sure?”
“They wanted these bricks too bad to back out.”
I stared down at my phone again, but my thoughts drifted somewhere else before I could even process the screen.
Giani.
Again.
I hated how much space she was taking up inside my head now.
“You still thinking about that shit?” Booda asked without looking at me.
“She was around me every day.”
“I know.”
“That’s weird as fuck.”
Booda finally looked over at me then. “It is, but now you know how to handle her going forward.”
I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes for a brief moment.
Booda checked the time once more before deciding, “We gon’ give them ten more minutes, then we gone. They taking too long.”
Neither one of us realized that was our last chance to leave.
Booda reached for the radio dial. His fingers touched the knob right as headlights swung into the alley. Both of us went rigid in our seats.
A black SUV crept toward us, then stopped a few car lengths away. The engine idled. No one got out.
Booda’s eyes narrowed. “Is that the?”
“I don’t know.” My finger curled around the trigger as the SUV’s doors swung wide.
The first shots punched through the windshield before my brain caught up to the sound. Glass sprayed across my face.
“Fuck!” Booda groaned, throwing himself sideways, covering me as rounds tore through the space where my head had been a half-second before.
Metal screamed. The truck bucked and shuddered under the barrage. I pressed myself against the seat, trying to make myself smaller, but there was nowhere to go.
“Booda!” I screamed as bullets ripped through the driver’s door and stitched across the dashboard, shattering the console between us.
The noise swallowed everything. Thought. Instinct. Breathing. All I could think about was surviving the next second.
I heard Booda grunt. Felt him jerk on top of me. Hot blood splattered across my face.
“Oh, my God!”
I tried to raise my weapon, but my arm wouldn’t obey. Something hot spread across my side. The passenger window burst inward, showering me with crystalline fragments that bit into my skin like teeth.
The truck was dying around us. Every surface punctured, every window gone, the seats leaking foam and fabric. And still the rounds kept coming, punching, tearing, and shredding until I couldn’t tell where the vehicle ended, and my own body began.
Another impact slammed into my back.
My ears rang.
Smoke filled the truck so thick it burned my eyes and throat, while the smell of blood and gunpowder swallowed the air around us.
Then the shooting stopped.
Not slowly either. One second, the alley was exploding with gunfire, and the next, everything went dead quiet except for the truck hissing around us.
My body shook uncontrollably beneath Booda’s weight.
“Booda,” I cried pathetically, trying to see if he was alive.
But I was too weak. Everything hurt in a way that didn’t feel real anymore, like my body had become something separate from me.
Blood poured down my face, soaked through my clothes, and spread beneath us both.
Outside, footsteps moved closer through broken glass.
Somebody laughed. A female. The sound hit me so hard my blood ran cold.
No.
Footsteps moved closer through the broken glass scattered around the truck.
Another voice said, “Check the bodies.”
My breathing turned ragged instantly.
“Please get up,” I whispered, pushing against Booda a little harder now. “Please, Booda.”
He still didn’t answer.
Then I heard heels.
Getting closer.
My entire body locked up.
The passenger-side door creaked open, and cold air rushed into the truck.
Someone poked Booda’s shoulder. “Damn,” the woman laughed. “Y’all really fucked him up.”
I knew that voice.
My stomach dropped.
No.
No. No. No.
“Pull him out,” one of the men said.
Hands grabbed Booda’s body and dragged him off me before dropping him onto the pavement outside.
The second his weight left me, pain ripped through me so badly I almost blacked out.
I tried to move but couldn’t. The dashboard swam. Steadied. Swam again. Something warm pooled beneath me and kept spreading.
Then Giani stepped into view, and my chest caved in.
She crouched beside the open passenger door, wearing all black with a gun hanging loosely from her hand, while she looked down at me as if she didn’t even know me anymore.
She looked calm, but her eyes were cold, like none of this bothered her at all. And somehow that hurt worse than the bullets.
“Gi…” Blood bubbled into my mouth. “Why?”
She tilted her head, smiling as tears burned my eyes.
“I’m tired of you. You have to go,” she said, and the words completely shattered me.
I stared at her, trying to force my brain to reject what I was seeing.
My best friend. My sister. The person I loved most besides Booda.
She did this.
She killed him.
A sob tore out of me.
“I hate—” I cried. “I hate you, bitch,” I managed to get out right as Giani lifted her gun.
“I’m sorry, Ko… syke!”
She fired, all color and light extinguished, like someone had thrown a thick blanket over the world, smothering everything in darkness and numbness.